sport news JEFF POWELL: Sanity prevailed with fight called off, but the biggest loser in ... trends now
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The grizzly spectre of Chris Eubank Jr having to box Conor Benn under the dark cloud of his opponent's failed drugs test lifted as the fight was finally called off.
Boxing breathed a huge sigh of relief as promoter Eddie Hearn called off his struggle to save the O2 show from Benn's positive return for testosterone.
It had already become clear that the British Boxing Board of control would not re-sanction Saturday's multi-million-pound show under any circumstances.
Saturday's fight between Chris Eubank Jr (left) and Conor Benn (right) is officially off
Hearn had tested the legal waters but there was little or no chance of gaining a High Court injunction against the Board. Not with the odious whiff of performance enhancing drugs in the air.
Sanity prevailed. The hardest game came out of this particular chaos with its nose clean, not badly bloodied.
The risk was averted of Eubank - dehydrated by coming down to the catch-weight for this fight left over from the Nineties by their famous fathers - being seriously hospitalised or worse by Benn punching well above his natural poundage with substance-boosted power.
The consequences of that to the sport would have been calamitous.
Benn tested positive for banned substance clomifene in the build-up to the mega-fight
If and when this nostalgic circus act is rehatched it will have to be after several
